A young woman came to return some horsey items I'd lent her months ago. Without knowing the details I knew she'd split with her boyfriend of five years. Worse, they'd split three weeks after their engagement party. They'd moved away, their house was sold and except hearing through the grapevine she was still in the area I knew nothing more. So she came and we sat on the deck swishing flies and making small talk. Finally I asked if she was all right. Did she want to talk.
"I'll cry if I talk about it," she said. But it seemed she wanted to talk for without going into details, she told me. I didn't need to know the details, the result was sitting in front of me crying, hating herself for what she'd done, grieving and angry and forlorn all at the same time.
"Come on in away from these damned flies," I said. I got her a tissue and a glass of water for it was hot and muggy and she needed something to do with her hands. Got myself one too as well as a washcloth to mop sweat. Thank you Menopause for the wisdom of years and hot flushes!
Wisdom. I don't know for sure if I helped her. She has to decide to be helped but I gave it my best shot. For there is much to be thankful for in my crone age, as opposed to the maiden and mother ages, which I've left behind long ago. Experience. The Long Eye. The ability to see the Big Picture. And Gratitude that it is not me enduring what she is enduring now. It was once. Oh, the details were different but the Grief and the Drama and the Emotional Rollercoaster were the same. And from such experience cliches are born. But as ever, one tries to imbue the old and timeworn truths with newer shiny words in the, perhaps vain, hope that they won't be seen as cliches.
Cliche #1. This too shall pass. She is very young. Her grief and pain are so great, it seems as though they are all that ever was, all that ever shall be. But the worst despair is worn thin by constant use. And finally it fades to a bearable level. It is never forgotten but eventually it only bruises, not cuts in the remembering.
Cliche #2. Chalk it up to Experience. She made a big mistake, a whopper of a mistake. And she's paying big time. However, this mistake is an experience, an experiment she'll never have to try again. She'll make other mistakes, just as I do. But I usually don't make the same mistakes twice, and if it's a Biggie, never. Nor shall she. This one has made such an indelible mark on her soul and her sense of self (shame is a great teacher). One understands the lesson immediately and never ever forgets it.
Cliche #3. It isn't the End of the World. She is consumed with guilt, grief and pain and it amazes her that the world continues to continue. She has lost her soul mate (although, because they are still in almost daily contact, I suspect, given time, they will find a way to reunite). Why does the world not implode? Why does it not turn black and die? Because it is the stage in which we play out our lives. The stage is our construct, it is the infrastructure about which we play and live and love and lose. It is all of a piece. We made it. We Are It.
Cliche #4. Forgive and Love Yourself. Do that first and everything else will follow. Asked her if she thought he would find her tear swollen, snot slick face attractive. He'd always been proud of her strength, her beauty, her enthusiasm and 'Can Do' attitude. Now she was weak and needy. She thinks she is not worthy of his love and is so ashamed of herself that she cannot love and forgive herself. We spent a lot of time on that.
How well I know the insidious logic of self-loathing. How dare we love ourselves? It is vainglorious to even like ourselves. Humility and suffering is the western-christian ethic we absorb by osmosis if not by direct teaching. Especially if you are a woman. We define ourselves through the prism of others opinions. I thought perhaps her generation of women had shattered those particular spectacles but it seems not. She was worthless because he, his friends and family said she was.
She hugged me as she left. Asked if I was superstitious because she'd dreamed that I'd died. Told her, after swiftly double checking that I wasn't superstitious, was I? that dreams are all about us so that if she dreamed I'd died it was because something in me reminded her of something in her, that the funeral was the death of an aspect of her. Which makes sense. I hope.
I hope too that she heals sooner rather than later. That she will heal I have no doubt. We're made of tough stuff. We have to be to survive the things we put ourselves through. For in the end, it is our story. Every single second. And ain't it grand?
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